Spinning Wheels: How Inefficient Structures Are Holding Back Your Success

There’s a familiar sense of frustration in many organizations—a feeling that, despite all the hustle and bustle, progress remains painfully slow. If your team’s efforts feel like a constant battle against inertia, you might be facing the consequences of an inefficient structure. When processes, roles, and team interactions are misaligned, they become the proverbial spinning wheels that keep your organization stuck rather than propelling it forward.

In today’s post, we’ll explore how hidden flaws in your organizational design—such as poorly mapped value streams, overwhelming cognitive load, and problematic team topologies—are silently draining your potential. Rather than diving into quick fixes, we’ll take a closer look at the problem itself, peeling back the layers to reveal why your structure may be holding you back.

Structural Problems

The impact of misalignment in the structure of your organization can emerge in many ways. Below we’ll talk through the problems we see in:

• Process - Problems in how work flows through the organization
• People - How misalignment in structure impacts people's ability to deliver
• Organization - Issues with how we’ve decided to organize teams

The vicious cycle of misaligned processes

Imagine a high-performance car designed to reach incredible speeds, but with a gearbox that slips and gears that don’t quite match up. Even the most powerful engine will be held back by these fundamental issues. Similarly, an organization can have the brightest ideas and most talented people, yet inefficient processes prevent it from delivering value effectively.

This leads to the problem of having unclear value streams.

Problem: Unclear value streams

At its core, every business process should contribute to a clear end-to-end flow of value—often visualized as a value stream. A well-mapped value stream illuminates the journey from idea generation to product delivery, highlighting every step along the way. Unfortunately, when these value streams are poorly defined or left to evolve haphazardly, several critical issues arise:

• Invisible bottlenecks: Without a clear visual representation, it’s easy to overlook areas where work accumulates, causing delays. These bottlenecks might only become apparent when deadlines slip or quality suffers, by which point significant damage has already been done.
• Overlapping responsibilities: When the flow of value isn’t distinctly mapped, roles and responsibilities can blur. Team members might find themselves duplicating efforts, or worse, certain tasks might fall through the cracks because everyone assumes someone else is handling them.
• Fragmented collaboration: An unclear process often forces teams into isolated silos. Instead of collaborating smoothly, departments end up working on disjointed parts of the process, leading to a fragmented experience both for the team and for the end customer.

In short, an organization without a well-understood value stream is like trying to navigate a labyrinth without a map. The result is a continuous cycle of delays, miscommunications, and wasted effort—spinning wheels that go nowhere.

In one organization we worked with, the organization asked us to look into why delivery was taking so long. Mapping the value streams showed that while there were opportunities to improve practices within the software delivery teams, the bigger opportunity was in improving how customer success and sales were working with the product team to define work. Taking this broader, more holistic, view of the value stream greatly helped the client teams understand where to focus.        

The cultural toll: When inefficiency seeps into the DNA

Bad processes cause other problems in your organization, one of the worst of which is cognitive load. Cognitive load refers to the mental effort required to process information and perform tasks. In an efficient system, cognitive load is minimized, allowing team members to focus on creative problem-solving and high-value tasks. When structures are inefficient, the burden on people’s mental capacity can become overwhelming. Ultimately, a system that continuously hinders progress fosters an environment of frustration, disengagement, and even distrust.

This leads to two problems: cognitive overload and the erosion of team morale.

Problem: Cognitive overload derailing productivity

Consider what happens when employees are forced to deal with convoluted workflows, ambiguous instructions, and constant interruptions:

• Mental fatigue: Every unnecessary step, unclear role, or redundant process forces your team to work harder mentally than they need to. Over time, this mental fatigue not only hampers productivity but also drains enthusiasm and creativity.
• Increased error rates: When individuals are overloaded, the likelihood of mistakes increases. In high-stress environments where processes are complicated, errors become almost inevitable, further compounding delays and quality issues.
• Reduced focus: A constant barrage of unclear priorities and fragmented tasks means that employees must switch contexts frequently. This leads to a significant loss of focus, as mental energy is expended not on core work but on navigating the maze of internal dependencies.

Inefficient structures, therefore, don’t just waste time—they impose a hidden tax on your team’s cognitive capacity, slowly eroding the potential for innovation and excellence.

Problem: Erosion of team morale

• Persistent frustration: When every project feels like an uphill battle against a maze of inefficiencies, morale inevitably suffers. The constant friction breeds a sense of futility, where no amount of effort seems capable of overcoming systemic obstacles.
• Stifled innovation: Creativity flourishes in environments where people feel empowered and clear about their roles. In contrast, a structure laden with ambiguity and excessive cognitive load leaves little room for innovative thinking, as energy is consumed by simply navigating the chaos.
• Diminished trust: Over time, a culture burdened by inefficiency can lead to an erosion of trust—both in leadership and in the processes themselves. When employees see their hard work constantly undermined by systemic flaws, confidence in the organization’s direction wanes.

In this light, the inefficiencies in your organizational structure are not merely operational hurdles; they are a direct threat to the very culture that drives long-term success.

One client we were working with asked us to help with the migration of some critical services into the cloud. For one of the minor legacy services in the suite, it turned out that only one person in the organization had expertise in the system. This person was both run off their feet and feeling frustrated. When asked if our proposal would work they responded that they could only sign off if a “technical architect” signed off, despite them being the only expert in the system within the organization.        

Structural flaws in organizational design

So, if your value streams are unclear and are causing cognitive load and eroding morale, you may want to also consider your organizational design. The way teams are organized and interact plays a critical role in an organization’s ability to deliver value. Team Topologies, a modern approach to visualizing and structuring teams, offers a reflection of how well—or poorly—your organization is designed. Rather than merely offering a blueprint for reorganization, team topologies can serve as a diagnostic tool that highlights the structural weaknesses holding you back.

Many problems arise when appropriate consideration is not given to organizational design. Below are three of the most common ones we encounter: ambiguous roles, cross-team dependencies, and people and skill gaps.

Problem: Ambiguous accountabilities

A fundamental element of any efficient organization is clear accountability. Every team member should know what their role entails and how it contributes to the overall mission. However, when roles are not clearly defined, the ripple effects can be profound.

• Delayed decision-making: Unclear accountabilities often lead to indecision. When it’s not clear who should make a decision, teams end up waiting for consensus or guidance from multiple sources, turning what should be quick actions into drawn-out discussions.
• Fragmented communication: Ambiguity in roles can lead to mixed messages and conflicting priorities. When everyone is uncertain about who is responsible for what, miscommunications abound, and valuable time is lost trying to clarify responsibilities on the fly.
• Underutilized skills: Without a clear mapping of roles and responsibilities, organizations may fail to leverage the full spectrum of their team’s skills. Critical capabilities might remain untapped because it’s not evident where they belong in the overall structure.
• Erosion of ownership: Perhaps most damaging is the gradual erosion of a sense of ownership. When employees aren’t sure who is accountable, the result is a culture where responsibility is diffused, and individual contributions feel less significant.

This accountability gap is more than an administrative issue—it’s a fundamental barrier to efficiency. Without a clear understanding of who does what, the organization is doomed to operate in a state of perpetual uncertainty, where every decision is bogged down by internal hesitations.

Problem: Cross-team dependencies

In any well-functioning organization, some level of dependency between teams is inevitable. However, when these dependencies multiply unchecked, they can become a significant liability rather than a collaborative strength. In fact, collaboration may even become a liability when dependencies mulitply.

• Cascading delays: In a tightly interwoven structure, a delay in one team can have a domino effect, stalling the progress of multiple others. Each dependency acts as a potential point of failure that can slow down the entire process.
• Compounded complexity: The more dependencies there are, the harder it becomes to track and manage them. This complexity not only wastes time but also creates opportunities for miscommunication and errors.
• Bottleneck vulnerability: With numerous interdependencies, the organization becomes highly susceptible to bottlenecks. A single misstep or overload in one area can choke the flow of the entire process, much like a clogged artery in a living system.

In one organization we worked with, commonly used functionality had been factored out to eliminate redundancy and increase efficiency. By design, this made consumers of the function dependent on the team that built them, which worked well until the goals of the producers and the goals of the consumers diverged. What was important for one group was not for the other, and the dependency slowed everyone down.        

These dependency traps underscore a critical insight: inefficiency is not just about isolated issues—it’s about how individual problems intertwine to create a system that resists progress.

Problem: People and skill gaps

A well-structured team topology would clearly show where certain expertise is concentrated. However, in a tangled structure, it’s difficult to see who has the right skills and where critical gaps exist. The result is a perpetual mismatch between the work's demands and the capabilities available to meet those demands.

• Visibility of expertise: A well-structured team topology highlights exactly where critical skills are concentrated, ensuring that expertise is easily identifiable across the organization.
• Uncovering critical gaps: In a tangled structure, it becomes difficult to discern who possesses the necessary skills, leading to an obscured view of where essential capabilities are missing.
• Mismatch between demand and capability: This lack of clarity results in a persistent misalignment between the work's demands and the available expertise, causing a continual struggle to meet project requirements effectively.

Through the lens of team topologies, it becomes apparent that many of the structural issues in an organization are not random—they’re the direct result of unclear team boundaries and the absence of deliberate role definition. The dependencies that arise from this chaos become self-perpetuating, continually slowing down progress.

Conclusion

Inefficient structures manifest in several deeply interrelated ways:

• Unclear value streams: Without a well-mapped journey from ideation to delivery, your organization is vulnerable to hidden bottlenecks and fragmented processes.
• Cognitive overload: Convoluted workflows and ambiguous roles place undue mental strain on your team, sapping creativity and increasing the likelihood of errors.
• Erosion of team morale: The persistent friction from systemic inefficiencies wears down morale, stifles innovation, and erodes trust within the organization.
• Ambiguous Accountabilities: The absence of clear ownership leads to delayed decision-making, communication breakdowns, and an erosion of responsibility.
• Cross-team dependencies: Excessive inter-team dependencies compound delays and complexity, transforming collaboration from an asset into a liability.
• People and skill gaps: Complex dependencies make it hard to balance the demand for specialist skills with the available capacity.

The reality is this: if your team feels like it’s stuck in a never-ending cycle of spinning wheels, the root cause may be within your organizational structure. These inefficiencies don’t just slow you down—they hold you back, silently draining the potential of even the most dedicated teams.

Understanding the problem in all its complexity is the first step toward meaningful change. Recognizing that a misaligned value stream, an overwhelming cognitive load, unclear team boundaries, and ambiguous roles are not just isolated challenges but interconnected issues can help you see the full scope of the problem.

While the temptation to jump straight to solutions is strong, it’s crucial to first fully grasp the impact of these inefficiencies. Only by acknowledging how these structural issues are holding back your success can you begin to envision a path forward—even if that journey requires a fundamental rethinking of the way your organization is built.

The cost of inefficiency is undeniably high, not only in terms of lost productivity but also regarding missed opportunities and hindered innovation. However, it’s important to recognize that these challenges can be overcome. The first step toward change is identifying the underlying issues. By understanding the interconnected problems of unclear value streams, cognitive overload, and misaligned team structures, you can set the stage for transformation. With a clear diagnosis, your organization can start to rethink its processes and reallocate its resources, paving the way for a more promising future.